A five-day weekend multiplier of 8.2x may not be a record, but it's still darn impressive. A Bad Moms Christmas took a real risk opening on Wednesday, correctly betting that the few folks who saw the film in its first two days would spread the good word heading into the weekend, and that the mediocre Wed/Thurs numbers would merely be a prelude to a solid Fri-Sun debut. And, thus far, it appears to be working. A Bad Moms Christmas earned $17 million over its Fri-Sun debut, for what will be a $21.56m Wed-Sun opening. That's about on par with the $23.8m Fri-Sun debut of Bad Moms back in July of 2016.

As a general rule, folks who want to see a movie will do so sometime over the weekend whether it's a Fri-Sun or Wed-Sun debut. So that A Bad Moms Christmas made about as much in five days as Bad Moms made in three is a relative win. While I wouldn't expect this comedy sequel to be as leggy as the previous film's obscene 4.75x weekend-to-final multiplier, there is a hope that the holiday-themed release will spread its wings in the lead up to Thanksgiving and then the lead up to Christmas.

There is a reason that most of the biggest Christmas movies (Elf, Home Alone, The Grinch, The Santa Clause, etc.) open in November instead of December. The Wednesday opening makes it harder to compare with similar early November Xmas movies. Since it barely made any money in those first two days I'm pretty comfortable just ignoring the Wed/Thurs figures for the moment and then just tossing them onto the film's final gross at the end. As such, if it plays like Fred Claus or The Santa Clause 3, we can expect a $70-$80 million domestic figure.

While the R-rated Bad Moms Christmas isn't the kind of movie you'd arguably take your kids to over the holidays, it's also pitched at the very demographics that are A) severely underrepresented at the multiplex and B) might not necessarily be able to catch the movie until the second, third or fourth weekend of release. Of course, since the Mila Kunis/Kristen Bell/Kathryn Hahn comedy cost just $28m to produce, even a low-end $65m figure, presuming it doesn't completely die overseas, would be just fine.

Speaking of which, it has already earned $7 million overseas, meaning the film's global gross has already essentially matched its budget. So it's still a bit away from profitability, but at this juncture, I wouldn't be too concerned. So prepare yourselves for A Bad Moms Halloween or A Bad Moms Valentine's Day. If you could get a female writer and/or director next time out, that would be swell.

Speaking of which, A24's Lady Bird opened in four theaters this weekend with a record-setting $375,612 debut weekend. That's a $93,903 per-theater average, which is A) the best such per-theater average of 2017 and B) the biggest per-location average ever for a live-action movie from a female writer/director. And even if we count animation, Walt Disney's Frozen had a male/female directing duo and a male/female writing duo.

Heck, among all live-action films with female leads, its p.s.a. is behind only Evita, Blue Jasmine, Precious, Dreamgirls and La La Land. The well-reviewed coming-of-age story, starring Saorise Ronan and Laurie Metcalf, will expand into top markets this weekend before going wide over Thanksiving. I'm absolutely planning on catching it tomorrow between press screenings of Murder on the Orient Express and The Darkest Hour.

There were two other platform debuts of note as well. Electric Entertainment opened LBJ into 659 theaters with poor results. The Rob Reiner-directed biopic, starring Woody Harrelson as President Lyndon B. Johnson, earned around $1.107 million weekend and miserable $1,679 per-location average. So yeah, all due respect, if you want to see this one in a theater you've got until Thursday evening to do so.

Finally, Richard Linklater's Last Flag Flying opened in four theaters yesterday with middling results. The Lionsgate release, about three Vietnam vets reuniting after one of their sons is killed in Iraq, stars Steve Carell, Laurence Fishburne and Bryan Cranston. It has received respectable, if not superlative reviews, and earned $42,000 over the weekend for a middling $10k per-location-average. It's on my to-do list, but it'll be playing at my local art house theater in a week or so.

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I've studied the film industry, both academically and informally, and with an emphasis in box office analysis, for 28 years. I have extensively written about all of said subjects for the last ten years. My outlets for film criticism, box office commentary, and film-skewing ...